Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1887-09-29

said. u am at one end of life and you are
at the other. have but short time be
fore me at best, and most things lie in the
past; but | hope that for you there art
many long and happy years, and every
| thing lies in the future. By and by you
will grow into a beautiful woman, little
| Flossie, and all this wild life will be like 6
far-off dream to you; but hope even if we
never do meet again, that you will think
OF your old friend, and remember what
say to you now. Always try to be good
| my dear. and to do what is right, rather
than what happens to be pleasant, for in
| the end, whatever sneering people may
say, what is good and what is happy are
the same. Be unselfish, and whenever you
can, give helping hand to others-for the
world is full Of suffering, my dear, and to
alleviate it is the noblest end that we can
set before US. If you 90 that, you will be.
come sweet and God-fearing woman, and
make many peoples lives a little brighter,
and then you will not have lived as so many
Of your sex do, in vain And now l have
| given you a lot of old-fashioned advice. and
SO am going to give you something tc
sweeten it with. You see this little piece
of paper. 1t is what is called a check.
| When we are gone, give it to your father
with this note-not before, mind You
will marry one day, my dear little Flossie,
and it is to buy you wedding present,
which you are to wear, and your daughter
after you, if you have one, in remembrance
of Hunter Quartermain."
Poor little Flossie cried very much, and
gave me lock of her bright hair in return,
which [ still have. The check / gave her
woo fOY + !, l.
| now well off, and having no calls upon me
| except those of charity, [ could we'll af-
| ford), and in the note [ directed her father
to invest it for her in government security,
and when she married or came of age tc
| buy her the best diamond necklace he
could get for the money and accumulated
interest. chose diamonds because think
| that now King Solomon's Mines are lost
to the world, their price will never be
much lower than it is at present, so that if
in after-life she should ever be in pecuni
| airy difficulties, she will be able to turn
| them into money.
Well, at last we got off, after much hantl
| shaking, hat-waving, and also farewell So
luting from the natives, AlphOnso weeping
copiousiy fOr he has warm heart) at part
ing with his master and mistress; and
was not sorry for it at all, for I hate those
good-byes Perhaps the most affecting
thing of all was to witness Umslopogaas
distress at parting with Flossie, for whor1
the grim old warrior had conceived strong
affection. He used to say that she was as
sweet to see as the only star on a dark
night, and was never tired of loudly con-
graduating himself on having killed the
Lygonani who had threatened to murder
her. And that was the last we saw of the
pleasant Mission-house-a true oasis in the
desert-and of European civilization. But
| often think of the Mackenzies, and won.
der how they got down country, and if
they are now safe and well in England,
and will ever see these words. Dear little
Flossie! / wonder how she fares there
where there are no black folks to do her
imperious bidding, and no sky-piercing,
snow-clad Kenia for her to look at when
she gets up in the morning. And so good
bye to Flossie.
After leaving the Mission-house we made
our way comparatively unmolested past
the base of Mount Kenia, which the Nasal
call "Donyo Egere," or the ''speckled
mountain, - on account of the black patches
of rock that appear upon it's mighty spire,
where the sides are too precipitous to allow
the lonely lake Baringo, where one of our
two remaining Askari, having unfortun-
ately trodden upon puff adder, died of
snake bite in spite of all our efforts to save
him Thence we proceeded a distance Of
about hundred and fifty miles to another
magnificent snOW-clad mountain, called
Lekakisera, which has never to the best
Of my belief, been visited before by a Eu-
7 20
scribe There we rested for a fortnight,
and then started out into the trackless and
uninhabited forest of vast district called
Elgumi. In this forest alone there are
more elephants than [ ever met with or
heard of before. The mighty mammals
literally swarm there, entirely unmOlested
by man, and only kept down blythe natural
law that prevents any animals increasing
beyond the capacity of the country they
inhabit to support them. Needless to say,
however, we did not shoot many of them,
first, because we could not afford to waste
ammunition, Of which our stock was get
ting perilously low, donkey loaded with
it having been swept away in fording a
flooded river; and secondly, because we
could not carry away the ivory, and did
not wish to kill for the mere sake of slaugh-
ter. So we let the great brutes be, only
shooting one or two in self-protection. In
this district the elephants, being unac
quainted with the hunter and his tender
mercies, would allow one to walk up to
within twenty yards of them in the open,
whitley the stood, with their great ears
cooked for all the world like puzzled and
gigantic puppy dogs, and stared at that
new and extraordinary phenomenon-man
Occasionally, when the inspection did not
prove satisfactory, the staring ended in a
trumpet and a'charge, but this did not Of
ten happen. When it did we had to use our
rifles. Nor were elephants the only wild
beasts in the great Elgumi forest All
sorts of large game abounded, including
Ions-cOnfound them! [ have always
hated the sight of a lion since one bit my
leg and famed me for life. AS q cOnse-
quence, another thing that abounded was
the dreaded tsetse fly, whose bite is death
to domestic animals. DOnkeys have, to-
gether with men, hitherto been supposed
to enjoy peculiar immunity from its at
tacks: but all | have to say, whether it was
On account of their poor condition, or be-
cause the tsetse in those parts is more